"I grew up in a house where asado was eaten with kimchi and where dinner conversations seamlessly shifted from English to Spanish to Korean and sometimes even Galego. My Korean, Uruguayan, Spanish, and Portuguese backgrounds lead to  multi-cultural, idiosyncratic, ill-fitting puzzle pieces that make up who I am. Likewise, my multi-panel paintings are intensely fractured, creating conflict upon close inspection of the juxtaposed illusionistic and abstracted, flattened and textured forms. I disrupt the continuity from one piece to the next, as well as, push and pull on figure and ground to play with how front-to-back are perceived. Growing up, I received many quizzical looks as individuals attempted to understand and piece together my varied, ethnic background. I wish to recreate that same experience in my paintings by provoking the audience to question and work to find connections that pull the piece together. Comparable to the oddly placed blocks in the paintings, which are linked through composition and color palette, I too, am linked by a unified body made up of mixed traditions and ancestries."

​Jennifer Lugris was born in North Bergen, NJ in 1986. She earned her MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2018. Her paintings have been exhibited and published internationally, and have won several awards. She currently lives in Sacramento, CA with her family, dogs, cats, and chickens. For Lugris’s full CV click the link below. 

Curriculum Vitae